Tuesday, June 5, 2012

DSD Interview: Samantha DeRose

Samantha DeRose is a colleague of mine, one who is also moonlighting as a stand-up comedian. She's brilliant, funny and got a ton to say, so let's get to it right now.

DSD: How did you get into stand-up
comedy?

SR: My mother blames my father. I’ve always been the family
buffoon. My father always made me
do impressions when I was little...I did a bad ass Richard Nixon. I’d do it now, but it’ll lose its
comedic appeal in print.

Then it was the old “my friends always
told me I was funny” spiel, but you know, just because your friends think
you’re funny doesn’t mean the rest of the world shares that opinion.

I’ve been writing off-the-wall
observations since I was a kid. I’m
pretty sure my sister & brother got more than they bargained for when then
snooped in my diary.

About 5 years ago, a friend suggested
that I take my musings to the comedy stage and naturally, I did nothing. Until one day, when I was going through
a rough time in my life , a postcard arrived in the mail. In an effort to pull me out of my funk,
my friend had signed me up for a beginner’s level comedy course at Gotham
Comedy Club in NYC.

DSD: Tell us a story, as we all have
a bit of stage fright: What's your best performance? Why did it
work so well?

SR: So I’m guessing performance issues are
universal. My best show was my
first road gig in front of a crowd of 400 people. I was opening for comedians whom I had
really admired. The day before the
show, the comic who had been my hero, snubbed me big time. My confidence was pretty much in the
toilet.

So I meditated for the first time in my
life. An hour before the show, I
sat in my hotel listening to Tibetan new-age music and visualized my set as a
complete success. And it was. What really helped me was being able to
actually “see” myself as being successful, which is really essential in
everything that we do.

People actually wanted to take photos
with me after the show. OK. Two people, but ya gotta start
somewhere, right? One, a college freshman, majoring in education, had really
loved my bits about the teaching.
Another was a woman who had just gone through some of the same
difficulties that I had experienced in the past. She said that it was the first time that she had laughed in
about a year.

I took the obstacles in my life and
turned them into something that people could laugh about. It was honest and that’s why it was
successful.

DSD: Reverse it. Have you
bombed? How'd you deal with that on stage? As writers, we deal with
bad reviews, but those are filtered by the text on the screen or on
paper. We rarely see the people who don't like our work.

SR: I bombed miserably sister’s 50th
birthday party. My aunt thought
that it would be a “hoot” if I did a set in front of all of our friends and
relatives. Because it’s so easy
coming up with a set that appeals to an audience whose ages range from 2 years
old to 97.

After a healthy bout of nausea and a
glass of wine (or 12) I bit the bullet and bombed. I can still see my mother’s head hanging in shame. It’s one thing to bomb in front of
people you’ll never see again, but family and friends? I think I’ll stick to face painting at
family parties, thank you very much.
Then again, we kind of don’t talk about the face painting incident
either. They were CIGARS! I swear (I seriously have pictures).

DSD: To me, as a novelist, writing is
very individual. I don't worry too much about the audience until it's too
late and the book is already out there. When you write your material, do
you consider your audience?

SR: I definitely alter my material for
different audiences. Clearly I
learned that lesson at my sister’s party.
We all have different personas depending on our environments. I’m a mom, I’m a teacher, and I’m
a comedian. I present myself in
differently depending on who’s around.
And the same holds true for comedy. My set at a cancer benefit for Gilda’s Club last year was
quite different than the set that I just did at a bar in Newark two months
ago.

That’s what I love about the art form
though. I can take the same
premises and rewrite them to appeal to different audiences.

DSD: What is your writing
process? Is there a way to know if a joke is funny or not in advance or
does it need that audience approval?

SR: The problem is that I find potential
humor in everything. I’m
constantly writing premises down (mainly on the envelopes of unpaid bills).
Then it’s a matter of trying those bits in front of different audiences,
rephrasing, and trying different timing, until the jokes get solid laughs. Most of the time, jokes in their final
stages look drastically different than what they looked like on the back of the
PS&G bill (maybe because the lights had been cut off). But it’s important to remember that
nothing is ever garbage. I often
revisit old stuff that might not have worked in the past and try the bits in a
different context. It’s pretty
cool when the jokes end up working a year or two later.

DSD: Who are some of your inspirations?

SR: My family, friends, and my two sons are
constant sources of material and inspiration.

Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and Steve
Martin were my earliest influences. In the 80s, Eddie Murphy. 90s, Seinfeld. It’s such a long list, but to name a
few more, Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, Kathy Griffin, Louis C.K., Zach
Galifianakis, Jon Stewart, Chelsea Handler, and Tina Fey all crack me the heck
up in different ways.

I’m really inspired by the comics that I
see in local shows, too. My
friends in the comedy community are so dedicated to the craft and really make
me want to push myself. I also
watch a lot of up-and coming-comics on YouTube. There’s a lot of talent out there just waiting to be
discovered...and they’re just a click away.

DSD: Okay, I've waited long enough to mention it, but it appears you have shaved your
head. The picture at the top of this post is a dead giveaway. Why?

SR: I was trying to think of a new way to
embarrass my mother since the birthday party incident. She wasn’t embarrassed (by the
haircut). And contrary to
what people think about teachers, it had nothing to do with random drug
testing. Truth. I’ve been teaching
for 12 years and I’m always trying to find ways to inspire my students, not
only to do well academically, but also to help others. I told my students that I would raise
$10,000 for St. Baldrick’s Foundation for Childrens’ Cancer Research and shave
my head publicly if they all passed my class for a marking period. It’s a cause very close to my heart as
I lost my brother to cancer and I taught several students who had battled the
disease. Suffice it to say, my
students passed, I’m bald, and we’re steadily reaching our $10,000 goal.

DSD: You're a teacher, what is your
opinion on the state of education in the news, government, or world right now?

SR: Loaded question. The modern American classroom is a
catch 22.

Today’s students face a number of issues
before they even enter our classes from poverty to transience to hunger to
pregnancy, just to scratch the surface. Have I mentioned budget cuts, layoffs,
and overcrowded classrooms?

The catch 22 is do teachers try to get
through their curriculum first or tend to their students’ issues first?

Please show me where standardized testing
factors all of those components into the final equation when determining
teacher effectiveness.

In the past, teachers had the support of
parents, administrators, boards of education, and politicians. Teachers could patch up the hole if one
component went missing. But now it’s as if all of the components are gone
EXCEPT for the teachers, yet they’re to blame. Go figure.

This is the worst analogy to make but
here goes. I have always loved
being a teacher but now I feel like I’m in a relationship where I’m in love and
the other person doesn’t love me back.
You know what I mean? It’s
that point in a relationship where you try everything in your power to make it
work and your heart is breaking but deep down you know the other person is just
not that into you.

DSD: I do know exactly what you mean. We all have that love of the job, but... Sigh. Meanwhile, do you find any similarities
between teaching and stand-up comedy?

Great segue. Yes, there are definitely similarities. Teachers are
constantly working on and revamping their subject matter to make it relevant,
meaningful, and engaging. And
that’s exactly what the stand-up comic has to do. You have to develop relevant material, establish a rapport
with an audience, make sure that you don’t isolate them, and ultimately leave
them wanting to come back again.
And the last part is the hardest in both cases (particularly with
students).

DSD: Any upcoming gigs you'd like to plug? A website?

SR: I’m
producing and performing in a show at The Duplex in Greenwich Village on June
22, 9:30 pm with great comics who have performed all over the world and even
written for well-known actors such as Jane lynch.

I’ll
be at Otto’s Shrunken Head on 14th St. in Manhattan on June 13 and
July 6 at 6pm.

And
I’ll be appearing in Montclair, NJ at Tierney’s Tavern on July 8 .at 8:00 p.m.

2 comments:

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